Thoughts on Money

I have great control of my money when I am earning it. I have zero control of my money when I am not.

Time matters. So much of the rat race that squeezes your free time means you have to spend loads of money on convenience purchases (woke up too late for the bus, had to take an Uber; no time to make dinner from scratch; etc) but even more importantly, if you do not have ample free time, you cannot learn how to be satisfied.

This is the kind of work we do as financial advisors. We help clients lean into the tension between money and meaning. It’s not about quick answers! It’s about living with the questions long enough to align their money with what truly matters.

But consumption smoothing pays homage to an existential reality: Life itself is the ultimate scarce asset. The future is unknowable, and religiously maintaining a double-digit savings rate through the worst squalls of life is not of the utmost importance.

Owning your right to feel good about money can help you make it happen. This isn’t law of attraction, raising your vibrations or whatever. It doesn’t actually get you more money by any means. It’s about getting creative to use the system against itself and claim the good money vibes you have every right to experience.

Risk isn’t a measure of negative consequences. It’s a measure of uncertainty. And the issue with minimizing risk is that while we protect our downside, we prevent ourselves from achieving any sort of meaningful upside. In this way, risk minimization isn’t an insurance policy as much as it is a collar, and the cost of protecting our downside is the... See more